Teachers want collective bargaining? Fine, do it publicly in front of the teachers and the taxpayers

For the sake of the children.

That's what we always hear from the teachers' union.

As reported in today's Review-Journal, the president of the Nevada State Education Association Lynne Warne has thrown down the gauntlet and said hell no to teacher pay cuts unless approved in collective bargaining talks.

"I am here today to tell you enough is enough," she is quoted as telling the Legislature's Interim Finance Committee. "You are asking an already strained system to absorb more devastation. We are all tired of the hand-wringing that there is no appetite for tax increases."

Appetite? Property values are down, foreclosures are up. People are unemployed and not buying things, so sales taxes are down. The tax revenues are reflective of the ability of people to pay them. Appetite?

Later in the story Warne declares people should have nothing to fear from collective bargaining talks.

Other than the fact they can drag on for months and could wind up in binding arbitration in which the taxpayer be damned, there is one minor little niggling factor to fear.

Collective bargaining is conducted in absolute, utter secrecy. The taxpayers and parents will have idea who is negotiating in good faith and who is gaming the system, be it either side.

Governance in the state of Nevada by law is supposed to be conducted openly and deliberations laid out before the voters so they can decide if they are getting good representation or not. But collective bargaining is exempted. The teachers themselves will have no idea how well their interests are being presented.

I suspect many teachers would be willing to accept a 6 percent or 10 percent or even 15 percent pay reduction, rather than see a similar percent of their co-workers taking a 100 percent pay cut, which would also leave them with bigger classes and more papers to grade.

The governor could never get the union lackeys in the Legislature to agree to repealing or even suspending collective bargaining, but he should try just to show the taxpayers who is on their side. Maybe he should propose collective bargaining take place openly while we're at it.

Just say it is for the sake of the children ... and their parents ... and the taxpayers.